


G-g-god

by orphan_account



Series: "Having fun with blood" and 1,000 other things to do when you're mad [2]
Category: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: Begging, Burning, Death, Gen, Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 19:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10646976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Poor Julius. Poor, stuttering Julius. The rules are written in obsidian, but maybe he can be good for something before he dies?A small fic before the events of the main fic, not big enough to make it into the main work. Just trying to build the past of my original character.Can be read on it's own.





	G-g-god

“Poor David Hatter…”  
She liked listening to the doll almost as much as she liked looking at her. There was something about those endlessly sad eyes that matched her voice perfectly, creating a nice, depressing little painting wrapped in lingerie and silken promises. Velvet Velour was a soft woman who believed in mercy. It’s hard to be an optimist when you’re an undead monster working as a stripper. You gotta respect that.  
They were polar opposites, but Velvet didn’t know that. Velvet had no idea that the malkavian in front of her had only helped rid this town of vampire hunters because she relished a chance to kill, and that they were only speaking as equals because one of them was hoping for a private dance.  
  
“I love hatters,” the malkavian said. Velvet smiled.  
“I love him too. That is why I have to help him.”

After a quick talk with David Hatter, the human screenwriter who was unknowingly teetering on the edge of the underworld, she was on her way to Santa Monica beach where Julius was going to answer for his crimes. It wasn’t about the masquerade; she gave exactly half a fuck about that.  
It was about mattering to the doll and getting her hands dirty in the process.

Maybe it was the unnaturally thick, salty air that made Julius sound like a hemophilic lawnmower. Like the other thin bloods he minded his own business on the beach, warming his cold, dead hands on the barrel fire that was now burning out, but unlike the others, Julius stayed out way too late. The beach was empty when she found him. Sunrise was closing in on them; they had maybe thirty or twenty minutes before they were both dead beneath the sky.  
  
“Uh-e-e-e-evenin’…” he stuttered. She gave him her most comforting smile, which apparently terrified him.  
“Do you know the mad hatter?” she purred.  
“Uh… Nuh-nuh-n-no…”  
“Uh, yuh-yuh-yuh-yes!” she mimicked. The sound of metal on metal rung through the night like a gunshot when she unsheathed her sword, and Julius turned to run, only to hit the still sizzling-hot metal of the barrel. She moved.  
One hand in his hair, the other grasping at his wrists, he was captured before he could even think to protest. She heard his cheap t-shirt sear as she pressed him against the barrel that had been burning all night.  
“Ah! Ah, p-p-please! I di-di-duh-diduhn’t know! I- I- I- I did not- I didn’t know! I duh-don’t know wha-wha-wha-w-“  
She pressed his soft chest into the edge of the barrel, forcing his face down towards the glowing embers. Even from behind him she could feel the heat.  
Panic, it turns out, does not cure speech problems.  
“Insolent chicklings must be disciplined. Heavy is the price of loose lips, Ceasar…”  
  
She put her own lips to his cheek and kissed the spot beneath his ear. The coal in the bottom of the barrel spit at them.  
“N-n-nuh-no! Pu-please! I- I- I’m- Won’t never d-d-do it again! I suh-swear!”  
His struggles barely phased her, but something about the squirming, terrified man… It reminded her of something. In the back of her mind a memory stirred. Just enough to feel it, not enough to remember.  
“Fuh-fuh-f-find your h-heart! Please! F-f-fuh-fu-huh-nd your heart! Oh god!”  
Yes. There was something there. The pitch of his voice, the tension in his bones so close to her own, it woke up feelings she thought she had forgotten.  
Disconnected sentences floated through her membrane. A dark room, rattling chains, syringes and screams… A place she had left behind in another life, that Julius made her remember.  
  
“What else would we do, hm? We are both pawns in a dark game. The hand uses me to topple you.”  
“Nuh-nuh-no! You c-c-could leh-lu-lehmme g-go! I- I- I’d leave Los A-Angeles, I sw- swear! Puh… P-p-please, I didn’t k-k… K…”  
Whatever he was going to say seemed to have left early. She massaged his scalp, studying the fiery embers inches from his face, and thought. What did he remind her of?  
“Say… Say god again.”  
“H-huh?”  
“Say “god” again, Ceasar. I’m thinking.”  
She heard him swallow something, probably his pride, and repeat after her.

“G-guh-g-god.”  
Yes. That tickled something in the back of her brain. More sentences, more voices, more screams came to her.  
“Say… Say you have a family.”  
“P-ple-“  
“Say it. Say, “I have a family”.”  
“I- I- I-uh-I h-a-ave a fam-i-luh…”  
  
She groaned softly. Her clawed hands were clutching his arms so tightly she was drawing blood.  
“That’s… Really something. You have a daughter. Fourth… Fifth? No, fourth grade. Who’s gonna tell her?”  
_It was only about 6 pm. The girl, whatever her name was, was still at soccer practice. The parent was in a dark room somewhere praying to a deaf god. She could just barely remember, seeing him in front of her, his pleading echoing that of Julius between sound proofed basement walls. He barely had a face any more, just slivers of flesh and bone, but he had still been begging her. Of course, he was dead now, and she doubted Julius had a daughter, but it would have to do._ The memory was so close she could taste it.  
“Oh- Oh g-god, puh-please, I ha-a-haa-have a d-daughter… S-she- She’s uh-uhonly in f-f-fifth-“  
“Fourth.” She corrected. The sword was sizzling hot after being bathed in coals this entire time, and it blackened his undead skin when she brought it to his throat.  
“ _Aah!_ Aah-oh-oh-o-oh g-g-god p-p-p-“  
“Fourth grade. Who’s gonna tell her?”  
“oh-ho-honly in f-fourth g… G-g-guh-grade… Puh-please, who’s… Who’s g-gonna te-tee-teehell h-her?”  
“Fuck, that’s good. It’s… You're doing great.”  
_It was so long ago. Long, long before they had found her, before the dirty cops started meddling in her hobbies and made her run away. Way before the embrace._  
_He had been one of the first. She knew he worked at the primary school next door, that he left at 4:30pm every day and was home around 5pm, and that he drove his kid out to practice at 6pm on the dot every Tuesday. Then he drove to the Burger King at the other side of town and got takeout for two that he ate in his car, alone, at the shadowy end of the parking lot where no one could judge him._  
_It had been so ridiculously easy to kidnap him. She just opened the passenger door, sat beside him, and before he could ask her politely (but firmly) to leave she shoved a gun into his ribs._  
_“Drive,” she told him. He did. All the way to her home on the edge of town. He spoke about his family, his loving wife, his darling daughter and diabetic cat all the way down to the basement._

In the present, the vampire let her fangs rest on the back of Julius’ neck. She was reliving the memory so vividly she had completely forgotten she didn’t need to breathe, and her growling, shallow breaths rumbling over his skin did nothing to comfort the terrified thin blood.  
“T-tuh-th-the s-sun, it’s g-gonna… P-please, I wo-wo-won’t t-talk to n-nob-t-talk to nobody, suh-swear!”  
“Oh… Oh, all right. Damn, Ceasar, you’ve given me a gift. I won’t forget.”  
She let go of his wrists and grabbed his hair again.  
Then she unceremoniously slit his throat.

She barely made it to her haven before the first rays of the sun hit Santa Monica. Golden rays swept over the pawn shop, over the filthy pavement and manholes, over the parking garage, until they finally started warming the sands of Santa Monica beach, where the ashes of a stuttery little vampire now rested.  
During the day, the wind swept them away.

When night came the others congregated on the beach and asked each other for news. No one had seen him. Maybe he finally saved up for that train ticket he was talking about?  
Barely five minutes away a malkavian rose from her slumber. She had been dreaming about something nice, but now it was slipping like sand between her fingers.  
She remembered killing Julius, but nothing else.  
Whatever. The doll would be happy.


End file.
